PennWest, a forklift dealership, has three Pennsylvania locations.

Toyota Material Handling (TMH) has acquired PennWest Toyota Lift, a Pennsylvania-based forklift dealership with locations in Mount Pleasant, Pittsburgh and Erie. The acquisition was finalized July 1. The company will continue to be known as PennWest, with no change in management or staffing. 

“PennWest has been a respected part of the Toyota dealer network for years and a terrific representative of everything Toyota stands for,” says Steve Tadd, TMH director of marketing & dealer development. “This acquisition will ensure Toyota’s continued representation in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio and offer continued dependable support to PennWest’s customers.” 

PennWest Toyota Lift, founded in the late 1960s, has an extensive track record of success with Toyota, earning the company’s President’s Award in 2018 and 2020, TMH says. PennWest’s key executives and management will remain with the company and continue to manage the business on behalf of TMH for the foreseeable future.

“Toyota is the perfect match for our company,” says PennWest President Mark Gaier. “Toyota’s philosophy to place a high value on quality products, customer service and associates mirrors our values. The transition will be seamless, and our customers will see business operating as usual.” 

The company will continue to own and operate the site as a collection and transportation facility.

Stericycle has ended its waste operations at a North Salt Lake, Utah, facility following a “tumultuous” history with surrounding neighbors, the state Division of Air Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), reports Deseret News.

The Bannockburn, Illinois-based company incinerates medical waste, which includes pathological streams, trace chemotherapy and nonhazardous pharmaceutical waste from clients such as hospitals and nursing homes.

According to an advocacy group made up of 400 medical professionals in Utah, the incineration of medical waste “can increase rates of serious diseases, like cancer, endocrine and immune disorders, infertility and birth defects” for people living as far as 4 miles away from the pollution source.

Tensions grew among nearby residents of the facility after a 2013 video of a Stericycle bypass event surfaced (an event when emissions are released to protect equipment inside the facility), which led to prompt community mobilization and protests calling for the company to cease operations.

In the aftermath of the video being released, state air quality regulators said they were able to document instances where the incinerator allegedly exceeded its emission limits and rigged stack tests in violation of its state permit, prompting a $2.3 million fine by the Utah Vision of Air Quality.

Eight years later in 2021, Waste Today reported that the EPA also reached a settlement with Stericycle over violated pollution laws, ordering the company to pay a $600,000 civil penalty. The company also was required to conduct a “supplemental environmental project,” which was completed through a $2 million donation to a local school district in Utah for the purchase of low-emitting school buses. 

Although Stericycle has halted its incineration operations, the company will still be active at the facility.

In a statement to Waste Today, the company says, “Stericycle proudly remains part of the North Salt Lake community. While we ceased operation of our hospital, medical and infectious waste incinerator services on June 30 at this location, we continue to own and operate the site as a collection and transportation facility to service health care customers throughout the greater Salt Lake region.” 

Stericycle adds, “This change to our operations has been planned for several years. As demand for medical waste management in the United States continues to increase, driven largely by growing health care needs, Stericycle has sought relocation to account for the infrastructure needed to expand our capacity. We look forward to continuing to help the healthcare industry address complex medical waste disposal challenges in a safe and responsible manner, both in the North Salt Lake community and across all communities where we operate.” 

Cal-Waste directors discuss the company's in-house commercial container repair program and how it has helped lower maintenance costs and increase efficiency.

For as long as Casey Vaccarezza, director of operations at Cal-Waste Recovery Systems, and Ken Kimmel, the company’s maintenance shop director, can remember, the California-based waste and recycling provider has repaired its collection containers in-house.

For Cal-Waste, the effort is part of its mission to be a pure customer service company, fulfilling its customers’ needs whether they ask directly or not.

“From a marketing standpoint for us, every container, every box, every cart is a billboard out on the street,” Vaccarezza says. “Do you want a rusted box in front of your business or a freshly painted one? Clean equipment is more appealing to a new customer.”

The company manages about 4,000 front-load containers and 1,200 roll-off boxes. Jack Meotti, marketing communications director for Cal-Waste, says the company refurbishes 10 roll-off dumpsters and up to 30 other commercial containers at any given time. The typical cost of repairing and maintaining a container or box depends on the amount of work that needs to be done but typically is between $1,000 to $2,000 apiece.

The containers are repaired as needed, and repairs can take up to three days, depending on the scope of the repair. Some of the most common repairs that need to be done include replacing the bottom of the container, replacing the lids, repairing holes, applying decals and repairing the pockets. 

The repair process at Cal-Waste begins in the field, with customers or drivers examining the container to determine if it needs to be taken in for maintenance. The primary sign a container needs to be repaired is liquid leaking from the bottom of the container, which sees the most wear because of the acidity of the material and from being picked up and put down regularly. 

Other signs that customers and drivers look for include damaged wheels and lock bars or sharp edges. They also look for cosmetic damage, such as chipped or faded paint and damaged decals.

When the company gets the container into the shop, it gets steam washed and examined before any repairs are made. Metal repairs are made before the container is sandblasted to remove the paint completely. Workers then apply a fresh coat of paint to the container and reapply decals. 

For Cal-Waste, the primary benefits of repairing the container in-house include quality control and lower costs. Vaccarezza says if Cal-Waste sent in the containers for repair at a fabrication company, there would be a 15 percent to 20 percent mark up in price because of parts, material and labor.

By handling the container repairs in-house, Cal-Waste also can manage the quality of the labor and materials, including higher quality paint and better welding. The company also finds benefits in customizing the containers for the businesses that use them. This includes installing specialty lids, splitting containers and bear-proofing boxes and containers for the company's foothill region customers.

Kimmel says another benefit of repairing the containers in-house is that Cal-Waste can prioritize what needs to be done.

“If we've got 30 containers of different types and sizes sitting at somebody else's shop, unless we're calling them telling them which one to do next, it will take a while to get what we need,” Kimmel says. “Because we're doing it ourselves, we're right there and we can prioritize what we need and when.”

The biggest benefit, however, is that the repair program allows the company to work on its own time and not the time of another company, which optimizes its speed and efficiency.

The company has acquired Gainesville Waste & Recycling and Dawsonville Waste & Recycling.

Waste Eliminator, a Gainesville, Georgia-based regional provider of solid waste hauling, disposal and recycling services, has acquired Gainesville Waste & Recycling (GWAR) and Dawsonville Waste & Recycling (DWAR), both based in the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Founded in 2007 by Kacy Cronan, GWAR is a recycling and composting operation that partners with large corporate and industrial customers to assist in achieving their sustainability goals.

As one of only five permitted biosolids composting companies in the state of Georgia, GWAR has been chosen to handle waste by several nationally recognized corporate companies because of its resourcefulness in diverting waste from landfills to other beneficial uses, Waste Eliminator says.

Following the acquisition, Cronan will remain with Waste Eliminator as a partner. He also will serve on the board of directors and the executive leadership team, where he will be responsible for leading business development efforts.

“The acquisition of GWAR is a game-changer for Waste Eliminator, bringing important disposal and recycling infrastructure to the platform and offering additional recycling capabilities to better serve our customers,” says Wes Turner, CEO of Waste Eliminator. “The combined platform is now the largest independent waste management and environmental services business in metro Atlanta. With the support from Allied Industrial Partners (a private equity firm providing financial backing to Waste Eliminator), we are well-positioned to integrate these companies and grow further.”

“Waste Eliminator shares our commitment to corporate sustainability initiatives and beneficial re-use, which makes them an ideal partner,” Cronan says. “The demand for recycling and sustainability services among our client base is strong and joining Waste Eliminator will provide us with the additional tools to address the market need.”

Waste Eliminator also acquired DWAR, formerly known as 400 North Landfill, an inert landfill outside of Atlanta that handles, processes and recycles organic waste and inert materials that otherwise would be destined for a landfill. DWAR’s facilities also include transfer capacity for construction and demolition and municipal waste.   

“When we invested in Waste Eliminator, we saw an attractive opportunity to grow the platform and gain economies of scale in a fragmented market, and we’re pleased to be delivering on that vision,” says Bradford Rossi and Philip Wright, co-founders and managing partners of Allied Industrial Partners (AIP). “Our continued investment in Waste Eliminator will further enhance the company’s recycling capabilities, which also aligns with AIP’s own sustainability goals.”

California’s SB 54 means plastic recycling facilities being built by Republic were an appropriate investment, according to analysts from Stifel.

Securities analysts with Baltimore-based Stifel Financial say a strategy by Phoenix-based Republic Services to build and operate plastic recycling facilities in the western United States looks prescient with the signing of SB 54 in California.

In a July 5 report prepared by Michael E. Hoffman and colleagues who analyze waste and recycling firms, the Stifel team writes, “We reiterate our ‘buy’ rating and $156 target price on Republic Services.”

The Stifel team describes SB 54 as mandating that “all plastic packaging be recyclable/compostable by 2032” and as requiring “65 percent of all single-use packaging be recovered/recycled by 2032,” leading to “an extended producer responsibility (EPR) program for single-use plastics.”

Stifel continues, “This legislation, in our view, further validates the basis for Republic’s investment in the Polymer Center in Las Vegas.” The analysts note Republic has stated it intends to open four or five more such plants. 

The analysis cites Republic’s collection and material recovery facility (MRF) infrastructure as an advantage, saying the firm “has 100 percent of the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) scrap volume to support Las Vegas, and the future growth [is] on its trucks today.”

Additional feedstock, Stifel writes, will result as SB 54 helps to “drive more third-party volume to Republic’s Polymer Centers to support upselling recycling/circular economy goals of consumer products group companies.”

Stifel and Republic describe the latter’s Polymer Center as being a $50 million capital investment that can process 50,000 pounds of PET scrap annually. The first facility, to start running next year, may yield $50 million per year in saleable products and offers a margin in the “low to mid 30s” percent range, Stifel says.